Time span of the novel
English > The novel > Time span of the novel
The action in Moscow in the novel plays from Wednesday night until the night between Saturday and Sunday. That night the Master finds peace, and Pilate finds mercy. For the orthodox christians this night coincides with the night of the Resurrection. So the chronology of the events in Moscow corresponds to the christian Holy Week, from the eve of Maundy Thursday to the night of Easter.
The biblical events of the novel start in the morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan to end late in the night of the Jewish feast of Passover. Nisan is, according to the civil calendar, the seventh month of the Jewish lunar calendar. Originally, according to the ecclesiastical calendar, it was the first month. The fifteenth day of Nisan (beginning at sundown on the fourteenth) is the start of the feast of Pesach or Passover, (Hebrew: פסח - coming from Pesach which means passing over). It's the day of the full moon, because the jewish months start on the day following the new lunar crescent.. Passover or Pesach is also knownas the spring feast, or the freedom feast, commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
Traditionally is accepted that the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan on which Christ was crucified, was on a Friday. Because we know from the Bible that Jesus had to be burried soon after he died, before dark and the start of the sabbat, which is always on a Saturday.
According to the French Bulgakov expert Marianne Gourg the Jewish Pesach coincides also with the Walpurgis night and its witches sabbath, but that's not correct. The Walpurgis feast is celebrated in the night between April 30 and May 1.
Click here to read more about the calendar issues in the Soviet Union
The novel
Your guide through the novel
In this section are explained, per chapter, all typical notions, names of people and places, quotations and expressions from the novel with a description of the political, social, economical and cultural context.
Bulgakov's Moscow
Have a look at the most important places from the novel at a single glance on a clickable map of Moscow.